We lost heavily in men and guns, and a shudder of alarm ran through all the Allied countries.
Nevertheless what Europe was then witnessing--I am of course quoting not any opinion of my own, to which I have no right, but what I have gathered from those responsible men who were in the forefront of the fighting--was in truth _a great defensive battle_, long and anxiously foreseen, in which the German forces were double the British forces opposed to them (64 to 32 divisions--73 to 32--and so on), while none the less all that was vitally necessary to the Allied cause was finally achieved by the British Army, against these huge odds.
Germany, in fact, made her last desperate effort a year ago to break through the beleaguering British, forces, and failed.

On our side there was no real surprise, though our withdrawal was deeper and our losses greater than had been foreseen.

The troops themselves may have been confident; it is the habit of gallant men.

But the British command knew well what it had to face, and had considered carefully weeks beforehand where ground could be given--as in all probability it would have to be given--with the least disadvantage.

Some accidents, if one may call them so, indeed there were--the thick white fog, for instance, which "on the morning of March 21st enveloped our outpost line, and made it impossible to see more than fifty yards in any direction, so that the machine guns and forward field-guns which had been disposed so as to cover this zone with their fire were robbed almost entirely of their effect--and the masses of German infantry advanced comparatively unharassed, so closely supporting each other that loss of direction was impossible." Hence the rapidity of the German advance through the front lines on March 21st, and the alarming break-through south of St.Quentin, where our recently extended line was weakest and newest.